As a mayor in rural Minnesota, Gene Hausauer has more pressing concerns than which state flag flies at city hall.
“I’m not going to spend a long period of time on it,” the Ortonville man said. “I care about, ‘Are we going to have water in our homes?’ and ‘Will we have decent streets to drive on?’”
So when his western Minnesota city’s council considered whether to fly the new or retired state flag, he was glad to resolve it and move on to regular local government business.
Hausauer and a council majority voted to fly the new design. Or, to be more precise, they supported the official design.
That flag is currently the one adopted in 2024 bearing two shades of blue and an eight-pointed star. Should the official flag ever change, so, too, will Ortonville’s choice.
And people can continue to fly whatever they want on private property, Hausauer said.
“If you don’t want to fly the new flag, it’s freedom of speech,” he said. “Don’t fly it.”
In holding the vote, Ortonville joined a growing number of local governments wading into flag decisions. Here are the many different routes they’ve taken in response:
Making it official
Whether it represents an embrace of the new, a rejection of the old, or a respect for official symbols, many local governments choose to use the new design outside or in council chambers.
Ortonville’s vote linked the city’s de facto preference to whatever the state designates as its official flag. Not everyone was going to be happy, Hausauer said, but the way to change the flag is to lobby state lawmakers, not local officials.
Related: Democrats want to take money from cities that fly the old Minnesota flag. Here’s how much
For an unabashed embrace of the new flag and rejection of the old, Columbia Heights fits the bill. The Twin Cities inner-ring suburb’s mayor, Amáda Márquez Simula, released a proclamation in May reaffirming the city’s adoption of the new flag.
In it, she described the previous design as celebrating the displacement of Indigenous people from their homeland. Her city refuses to carry that legacy forward, she stated.
“The City of Columbia Heights proudly flies the new Minnesota state flag and stands firmly behind everything it represents,” she said in the proclamation.
Other cities quietly switched over to the new flag with little to no pushback. Or, with an eye on the budget, they’re waiting for the old design to wear out before making the change.
Out with the new, in with the old Minnesota flag
Many cities, both in Greater Minnesota and in the Twin Cities suburbs, threw their lot in with the old flag. As the list grew this year, a DFL lawmaker even proposed a bill to withhold state aid from them.
Local officials in these cities, ranging from Janesville in the south to Babbitt in the north to Champlin in the ‘burbs, cite different reasons for their reactionary positions. Depending on who’s talking, the vote may be for preserving history, against the lack of input on the new design, or a point about how there was never a statewide vote on the change.
In a sign of the votes becoming a political litmus test, national figures latched onto the issue. Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer, whose 6th Congressional District includes Elk River, applauded the city’s reversion to the previous flag in a Facebook post in April.
“The City of Elk River has voted to restore Minnesota’s old state flag, which is a much better representation of our state than woke Tim Walz’s flag that resembles that of a certain East African country,” he stated, referring to the new design’s vague similarities to Somalia’s flag.
The old flag also became a rallying symbol at the Minnesota Republican Party’s convention in Duluth last weekend. Campaign staff handed out mini flags, delegates wore hats and shirts featuring it, and Emmer sent in a video address that at one point showed the new flag bursting into flames while he spoke.
Let’s try to satisfy everyone (or no one?)
In a “Seinfeld” episode, characters Kramer and Elaine fight over the rightful ownership of a bicycle. They turn to Jerry’s arch nemesis down the hall, Newman, to arbitrate.
The postal carrier turned judge, channeling the biblical Judgement of Soloman, says the bike should be cut down the middle so each can have half. This suggested compromise, in which no party would leave satisfied, came to mind when Itasca County commissioners attempted to resolve the flag issue.
Not because they voted to cut any flags in half, but because their solution was unlikely to leave proponents of the new or old flag satisfied.
Both flags will fly in Itasca County.
After a commissioner first proposed it, his colleague suggested the old flag should fly above the new flag “due to history.” Another commissioner proposed flying them on two separate poles, which passed.
Why fly a flag at all?
Detroit Lakes once flew the new flag. After pushback, a majority of the council rescinded that choice and decided not to fly any state flag.
The vote didn’t proceed without council members wondering why they were spending so much time on the issue. The flag was a discussion point at multiple meetings before the vote in 2025.
Ultimately, Mayor Matt Brenk broke a tie to pass a vote for no flag. In doing it, he, like “Seinfeld”‘s Newman, invoked the King Solomon story, which involves the biblical figure proposing to cut a baby in half in order to see which claimant of the child truly wants no harm to come to it.
“I’m going to do the King Solomon thing and cut the baby in half,” he said. “We’re going to have no flag.”
It should be noted that some cities never flew the state flag and continue not to fly it. No law requires it.
Related: Did the Minnesota flag change without public input?
Don’t like the flag? Design your own.
Numerous Minnesota cities already have their own flags. Mankato’s features a steamship overlaid on the confluence of windy blue lines, representing the city’s river geography and history.
Duluth adopted a new design, also evoking water, in 2019. Byron’s has a bear on it.
North Branch has no city flag, yet. Its council, which didn’t support the new flag, wants to change that.
The design could represent the city and its values, Mayor Kevin Schieber said during a meeting in April. Council members discussed involving local schools in the process. They’d welcome ideas, accept submissions and hold public meetings before any final decisions or votes.
The process sounded much like the process that the state followed in selecting the new flag.
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